Tag Archives: Jessie Veeder

Note To The Bohemians, Codi, Kit, Kaycee, Kristi, Jessie, And Marinna About Who I Am, The Frog King

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If you read my blog posts “Bohemians, Romanians, Gypsies, And Reincarnation” Parts I, II, & III, I say that we have all met before.  I must be in Dickinson for some reason.

I don’t remember signing up for this, or agreeing to this, being in Dickinson, but I am here just the same. Part of why we have met before is because my ancestry is German.  My German ancestry of course would involve German Folklore.  This German Folklore was very well collected and recorded by the Brothers Grimm, die Bruder Grimm.

The Brothers Grimm collection of folk tales included more than two hundred stories.  You easily know some of these: Snow White, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and Rumpelstiltskin.  Some of you ladies may be feeling uneasy now, because you know full well the theme and lessons of these stories.  You must know, that the Brothers Grimm always included one story first, Der Froschkonig, The Frog King!

The Frog King, is about a very beautiful and spoiled young princess.  Can any of you ladies tell who amongst you this most resembles?  Allow me to tell some of this story.

In olden times when wishing still helped one, there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful, but the youngest was so beautiful that the sun itself, which has seen so much, was astonished whenever it shone in her face……

Now it so happened that on one occasion the princess’s golden ball did not fall into the little hand which she was holding up for it, but on to the ground beyond, and rolled straight into the water. The king’s daughter followed it with her eyes, but it vanished, and the well was deep, so deep that the bottom could not be seen. At this she began to cry, and cried louder and louder, and could not be comforted.

And as she thus lamented someone said to her, “What ails you, king’s daughter? You weep so that even a stone would show pity.”

She looked round to the side from whence the voice came, and saw a frog stretching forth its big, ugly head from the water.

“Ah, old splasher, is it you,” she said, “I am weeping for my golden ball, which has fallen into the well.”

“Be quiet, and do not weep,” answered the frog, “I can help you, but what will you give me if I bring your plaything up again?”

“Whatever you will have, dear frog,” said she, “My clothes, my pearls and jewels, and even the golden crown which I am wearing.”

The frog answered, “I do not care for your clothes, your pearls and jewels, nor for your golden crown, but if you will love me and let me be your companion and play-fellow, and sit by you at your little table, and eat off your little golden plate, and drink out of your little cup, and sleep in your little bed – if you will promise me this I will go down below, and bring you your golden ball up again.”

Let me interrupt, that I am not unlike this frog, I only wish for what this frog wishes.

But the frog when he had received this promise, put his head into the water and sank down; and in a short while came swimming up again with the ball in his mouth, and threw it on the grass.

The king’s daughter was delighted to see her pretty plaything once more, and picked it up, and ran away with it. “Wait, wait,” said the frog. “Take me with you. I can’t run as you can.” But what did it avail him to scream his croak, croak, after her, as loudly as he could. She did not listen to it, but ran home and soon forgot the poor frog, who was forced to go back into his well again.

Now you must know, that this frog turned up at her house, and her father demanded of her that she honor the promise that she made to this frog.  She did so reluctantly, and when the frog tried to climb into bed with her, this is what she did:

At this she was terribly angry, and took him up and threw him with all her might against the wall. “Now, will you be quiet, odious frog,” said she.

Now this is not the end, though you might be hoping that it might have been.

But when he fell down he was no frog but a king’s son with kind and beautiful eyes. He by her father’s will was now her dear companion and husband. Then he told her how he had been bewitched by a wicked witch, and how no one could have delivered him from the well but herself, and that to-morrow they would go together into his kingdom.

What you should know about these German Folk Tales, is that they teach a lesson.  No, you will not literally have frogs speaking to you, but you will have people that seem like frogs talking to you, with their big heads, short legs, and cold wet skin.  But you see, it all worked out in the end.

Now, if I am not like this frog in this tale, I am like the Brothers Grimm in involving you in my tales.  You see, I can’t help it.

Croak croak croak!  Codi is competing in the Miss North Dakota USA pageant in Fargo in late November of 2016!  Good luck Codi!

Trying To Change Things In Dickinson And Watford City, North Dakota

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In my blog posts I have written about: The Dickinson Mafia, Dickinson State University, Dickinson Police Department, Dickinson Chamber of Commerce, Watford City Chamber of Commerce, Watford City Police Department, Belfield, Gladstone, Catholics, Bohemians, Black People, Mexicans, Real Estate Agents, Property Developers, Property Investors, White Trash, Jessie Veeder, Dan Porter, Kristi Schwartz, Bill and Kamal Patel, Outlaw Sippin Band, Codi Miller, Marinna Marsh, Eric Smallwood, Bigfoot, UFOs, women, bartenders, prostitution, restaurants, and that arrogant Mexican who owns that Mexican restaurant.

Many people are mad at me.  I will suffer some negative consequences as time goes by and people figure out that it is me who wrote these things about them.  There are at least three things that I accomplish when I write about Dickinson and Watford City:  I give the readers from out-of-state a better understanding of what is going on in western North Dakota; I point out things to the local readers that they might want to think about, consider, and change; and I cause the local people who are directly involved to think about what they are doing and maybe change what they are doing.  It is worthwhile to me to give truthful information to people from out-of-state to save them from having problems, and to try to cause some things to change in Dickinson and Watford City that will benefit everyone.

There are some things that I write about, that no one else addresses in public, and the Dickinson Press newspaper will not write about.  There are some things that I write about, that no one thought needed to be written about.  The following are some subjects that I have written about that I still think are important:

  • The Dickinson Mafia.  The Dickinson Mafia exerted beneficial control over development in Dickinson.  The town of Dickinson is very organized and clean, even though it just went through an Oil Boom.  However one of the things that the Dickinson Mafia should have done was grab hold of all the Real Estate Agents and Property Investors by their necks and said, “You are not going to fuck up this beneficial growth of Dickinson by ripping off all these people so bad, that they can’t wait to leave here when this boom is over!  Do you understand that you are going to ruin the whole economic future of Dickinson for years to come with your short-sighted gouging that is only going to last a couple of years?”
  • Dickinson State University.  I quit going to the West River Community Center in 2013 because of all the hoodlum street thugs, which were here in Dickinson because they were brought here by DSU.  Everybody in Dickinson noticed this, where did all these inner city street street thugs come from?, my God, it’s DSU that is recruiting them here!  In about 2015, I think that Dickinson State University quit doing this, because I don’t see as many hoodlum street thugs in Dickinson as I used to.
  • Dickinson Chamber of Commerce and Watford City Chamber of Commerce.  At first, the Dickinson Chamber of Commerce and the Watford City Chamber of Commerce did not want to allow my blog on the first page of Google search results, but now they don’t fight with my blog as much.  Probably, the Chamber of Commerce wants people from out-of-state to know that housing prices are very high, that most people who come to North Dakota to work will not make $100,000 per year, that it is very cold for about seven months each year, and that there is no homeless shelter.
  • Jessie Veeder.  Jessie Veeder is a singer, writer, and photographer from Watford City.  I wish that she would write about Watford City and North Dakota exactly how it is, not how she wants it to be.  She should know from her grandparents, parents, and old people in Watford City how hard life in North Dakota had been, how poor people were, and how much of a struggle it was to survive.  It is very important that people in North Dakota know and never forget how hard and difficult it was for people up until this most recent Oil Boom.  People here need to know this so that they conserve everything they have, don’t waste anything, and don’t live foolishly.  There has been about a twenty-five year gap between Oil Booms in North Dakota.
  • Women, bartenders, restaurants, and prostitution.  It took me a while to catch on, but I am now 100% certain, that the single women who came to North Dakota to work had something wrong with them.  There are jobs in human resources, nursing, administrative assistant, banking, retail, hotel, bartending, and waitressing, everywhere in the United States.  A woman could make more money in these occupations in Florida, Texas, New York, Arizona, or California and live in a more comfortable and better social environment.  With the cost of housing in western North Dakota, there was no financial advantage to women in these occupations to move to North Dakota.  The thing was, they were so fucking crazy, that they could not get a job in Florida, Texas, New York, Arizona, or California, a background check or even just talking to them for five minutes would reveal that there was something wrong with them.  In North Dakota, there was a shortage of workers, so employers didn’t do much of a background check or much of an interview to exclude crazy people.  In addition to the extremely cold weather, very high housing prices, lack of things to do, and shortage of women, when you did go to a restaurant or a bar, the women servers were crazy and had something wrong with them.  I argued and argued in this blog that prostitution should have been allowed in western North Dakota due to the shortage of women.  I argued that housewives didn’t want truck drivers, construction workers, and oil field workers trying to solicit them everywhere they went.  But I was wrong about prostitution, if all the waitresses and bartender women had something wrong with them, I can’t even imagine how horrible the prostitutes would have been.

 

Outlaw Sippin And The Green River Gargoyles Of Gladstone

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Gladstone, North Dakota is fifteen miles east of Dickinson on Interstate 94.  The town of Gladstone sits high above the Green River which runs through the center of town.  The population of Gladstone according to the 2010 Census was 239.

Gladstone has a Highway that runs through it, called “The Enchanted Highway” that has ten of the largest scrap metal sculptures in the world depicting such things as birds, fish, and grasshoppers.

In the 1970s Gladstone had the “Green River Concerts” which were outdoor music concerts that lasted through the day and into the night, with a high amount of alcohol being consumed, along with marijuana, and LSD.  Some of my older friends in Dickinson who are in their 60s, start giggling when I ask them about the time people demanded to have some of their wine, and they didn’t know that the wine had LSD in it, and they had never taken LSD before, and they went out of their minds in the fields in Gladstone that night.  This is probably why they quit having the Green River Concerts.

This may have been when people in Gladstone started seeing gargoyles.  Some people said, “How can you tell the difference between gargoyles and North Dakotans?”  Some people said that the gargoyles had wings and could fly, which makes them different than North Dakotan people.  A mayor of Gladstone, I’m not going to say which one, said,”I don’t want anybody to shoot at, or try to kill what they think is a gargoyle.  It could be somebody’s kid, or somebody who has something wrong with them.  I have a call in to Fish & Game, and until I have something back from them in writing, I don’t want anybody trying to shoot one.”

The towns people said, “Can we at least call Outlaw Sippin, they investigated the Giant Sea Squid of Sakakawea and that Dennis Johnson thing?”  (Is it any wonder that they would call Outlaw Sippin?  Beni Paulson lives not ten miles away in Richardton.)

The Outlaw Sippin band consists of Brady Paulson, Beni Paulson, Emil Anheluk, and Jessie Veeder.  Jessie Veeder likes to take photographs, so it was her job to stay around Gladstone and try to photograph a gargoyle.  Brady and Beni thought that the gargoyles might be living in the coal mine shafts between Dickinson and Gladstone, so they went to look there.  Emil thought that the gargoyles might have something to do with the Assumption Abbey in Richardton, so Emil went there.

The Assumption Abbey is a Benedictine Monastery that was built in Richardton in 1899.  Today one of the things that the monks do at the monastery is make soap, which they sell at their gift shop.  When Emil went to the monastery to follow his hunch, he didn’t want to let on what he was doing.  He started talking to the monks about the monastery, and what it was like there.  The monks offered to let Emil stay there in an extra room in the dormitory, to dine with them, and to participate in their activities.

A day came and went with Emil living in the dormitory, dining in the hall with all the monks, making soap, and chanting.  Emil liked chanting.  Emil liked it so much and was having such a good time, that he soon forgot about the gargoyles and why he was there.  Had it not been for an intervention by Brady and Beni, Emil might still be there to this day.

Well, Jessie Veeder was supposed to be taking photographs of a gargoyle, and she didn’t see one, and she started talking to people, and there is a bar in Gladstone, and Brady and Beni had to go get her too, and this turned out to be not one of their better cases, but nobody got hurt, and maybe I shouldn’t have even talked about this case.

 

Outlaw Sippin And The Giant Sea Squid Of Sakakawea

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During the 1970s and 1980s there was a cartoon television show “Scooby Doo”. The television show was about a group of four members, Fred, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy, and their stupid dog Scooby.  They drove a van, the “Mystery Machine”, and every episode they would happen upon a mystery that needed to be investigated.  Also on television at the same time was the cartoon “Josie and the Pussycats” which was about a band, that would happen upon a mystery in every episode that needed to be investigated.  Therefore, I see no reason why the Outlaw Sippin band can’t investigate mysteries.  Hence, “Outlaw Sippin And The Giant Sea Squid Of Sakakawea”.

The Outlaw Sippin band consists of members Brady Paulson, Beni Paulson, and Emil Anheluk of Dickinson, and Jessie Veeder of Watford City.  Lake Sakakawea is a 480 square mile reservoir located twenty miles northeast of Watford City.  The creation of the lake flooded the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation villages of Van Hook and Sanish.

There are at least two legends regarding Lake Sakakawea.  There is a Native American legend of a Missouri River monster, Miniwashitu, that is now trapped in Lake Sakakawea after the dam was built.  The second legend is that a crew of underwater welder divers refused to continue to work on a dam gate repair until shark cages were brought in due to the size of the paddle fish encountered, which were big enough to swallow the divers.  Is it any surprise that the Outlaw Sippin band would be called in to investigate, not twenty miles from Jessie Veeder’s home?

The circumstances of the Outlaw Sippin band’s involvement, is strangely similar to those described in Jules Verne’s novel “Twenty Thousand  Leagues Under The Sea”, which coincidently, also involves a giant sea squid.  However, Lake Sakakawea is only 180 feet deep and 176 miles long.

Brady, Beni, Emil, and Jessie are onboard a pontoon boat in search of the giant sea squid, when they encounter the creature.  During the subsequent attack, Brady, Beni, Emil, and Jessie are hurled overboard.  They cling to the creature to keep from drowning, which they find is not a creature at all, but a submarine!  They are captured, and brought before the captain, Dennis Johnson, former mayor of Dickinson.

To be continued…

My Second Song For The Outlaw Sippin Band, “Happy As A Toad In A Valve Box”

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The Outlaw Sippin Band in Dickinson, North Dakota is comprised of Brady Paulson, Beni Paulson, Emil “The Edge” Anheluk, and Jessie “The Linda Ronstadt of Watford City” Veeder. In a previous blog post, I explained how I wrote a duet for Beni and Jessie titled, “Take Your Chicken And Your Thing!”. In this blog post I have a new song that I wrote for Jessie Veeder titled “Happy As A Toad In A Valve Box.”

The origin of this song is as follows. I was in line at the Jack & Jill grocery store in Watford City, and ahead of me in line was this young attractive blond girl, and all she was buying was one single drink. I thought to myself, “Man, that girl is buying just one drink, I have to buy about four ice teas just for one night. It’s not like I drink a lot. I probably drink about as much as a toad if he were my size, and I don’t even spend all day in a valve box. I wonder how toads get inside valve boxes, I hope they can get out.” Knowing that the Outlaw Sippin Band needed another song, I figured that I would write one.

I was thinking of the Moody Blues song “Nights In White Satin”, the rhythm and music of that song.

Nights in white satiiinnn…..                                                                                                                          Never seeing the ennnnddd…..

 

Happy as a toad in a valve boooxxx…..                                                                                                     Never wanting to leeeavvve……

Days spent in darkneesss….                                                                                                                         Bugs coming to meeeee…..

Nights in white satiiinn……                                                                                                                           Never seeing the ennnddd…

And I love yooouuu…..!                                                                                                                                      Yes I love you…..!                                                                                                                                               Ohhhh I love yooouuu……!

 

Now, this song supposes that the toad can get out of the valve box. And people may be wondering, does the toad have white satin sheets, and where did he get them? So unless I do some more work on this song, it should come after “Take Your Chicken And Your Thing!”, that way the details of this song won’t matter as much.

O.K., I worked on it some more:

Toad in a valve boooxxx…..                                                                                                                              Never wanting to leeeavvve……

Days spent in darkneesss….                                                                                                                         Bugs coming to meeeee…..

And I love yooouuu…..!                                                                                                                                      Yes I love you…..!                                                                                                                                               Ohhhh I love yooouuu……!

Nights on white sidewaaalllk….                                                                                                                   Never seeing the eenndd….

Knife River Constuctiooonnn….                                                                                                                    Built it for meeeee…

And I love yooouuu…..!                                                                                                                                      Yes I love you…..!                                                                                                                                               Ohhhh I love yooouuu……!

Note To Jessie Veeder, And Everybody, What Living In Western North Dakota Is Like

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I am still angry after reading Jessie Veeder’s website, “Meanwhile, back at the ranch…”.  Jessie Veeder is from Watford City, she writes weekly newspaper articles about living in Western North Dakota.  She is sometimes a guest on Prairie Public Radio.

I am angry with the comments women have posted to Jessie’s website.  Women from all over the United States have posted comments about how nice it must be living in North Dakota, from what Jessie writes about it.

Jessie writes about living on a ranch, and she takes photographs of horses, flowers, fields, and dogs.  Women read what she writes, look at her photographs, and comment that living in Western North Dakota must be so nice.  Attention Women!, if you are getting the impression that it might be nice to live on a ranch, not have to pay rent, not have to worry about being evicted, not have to go to a job every day, this is not how the fuck it is in Western North Dakota!

Imagine that you are man, you have a wife, a one year old and a four year old.  You have a lease for a two bedroom apartment that costs $2,000 per month.  Your wife does not work because she has to stay home with the kids.  Fisher Industries right now has a job advertisement for welders, paying $18 per hour, yes $18 per hour.  I don’t know if they are working any overtime right now, let’s say they work five, ten hour days.  That’s $990 per week before taxes, about $800 per week after taxes, about $3,200 per month after taxes.

Rent $2,000, utilities $150, cable TV $75, cell phones $50, car insurance $100, car payment $200 (piece of shit car), leaves $625 left over for a family of four, for food and gas each month, if nothing goes wrong.  That’s $21 a day total, for a family of four, for food and gas!  No money for clothes, birthday presents, Christmas presents, vacation, or savings!

Before you try to get smart and say, “You can get a two bedroom apartment now for $1,500 per month.”, people aren’t getting overtime now either, so $18 per hour, 40 hours per week, is $720 per week before taxes, $580 per week after taxes, about $2,320 per month after taxes.  After your $1,500 rent, utilities $150, cable TV $75, cell phones $50, car insurance $100, car payment $200, leaves $245 for food and gas, for the family of four, for the entire month!

On the internet, when you do a Google search for “living in Watford City” or “living in Dickinson”, you get search results back for websites titled, “Watford City, Living The Good Life”, and “Dickinson, Living The Good Life”.  The vast majority of the people in Watford City and Dickinson are struggling financially, and are worried about losing their jobs.

As far as the ranching life goes in Western North Dakota, most of the ranchers that I have known, and currently know, they are struggling financially.  One of these ranchers borrowed money from me several times, and a friend of mine several times, when he was broke.  He had asked to come to work with me.  Other ranchers that I personally know, they have had to rely on their jobs to support their families, and have become broke when they lost their jobs.

I wish that Jessie Veeder would go and talk to the wives that live in the new apartments in Watford City and Dickinson, and talk to them about what their lives are like.  Anyway, I told you, and I am going to keep telling everybody what living in Dickinson and living in Watford City is really like.

 

Jessie Veeder, The Linda Ronstadt Of Watford City

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In Watford City, there is a 32 year old woman named Jessie Veeder, who has recorded about four albums.  She writes songs, takes nature photographs, writes weekly newspaper articles, and sometimes is a guest on Prairie Public Radio.

If I remember correctly, she might have recorded her first album when she was 16 years old.  She was performing then.  When she was several years older, she began touring and playing at small venues.  Her music is described as folk and country.  According to Jessie, her music, writing, and photography, are all about the beauty of rural Western North Dakota.

You can go look at her website titled, “Meanwhile back at the ranch…”.  On her website, Jessie has several hundred photographs of rural Western North Dakota.  The subject matter of her photographs are horses, flowers, dogs, fields, old barns.  You can also read about her music.

In this post, I will acknowledge that Jessie worked hard as a music artist.  She wrote her own songs, recorded albums, toured, and performed.  Somewhere along the way she got a degree in communications and public relations from North Dakota State University.

It is good that Watford City has someone to be proud of, and someone that writes positively about Western North Dakota in the newspaper, and speaks positively about it on Prairie Public Radio.

I don’t want to be too mean about it, but I do want to be mean about it, Western North Dakota has been like being in prison for the vast majority of people for the past eight years.  And before that, it was a cold, barren, desolate, impoverished area.

Jessie, why don’t you take some photographs of the friends of mine from North Dakota whose teeth are rotting out because they never could afford dental care living here in North Dakota, because they were so poor?  Why didn’t you take photographs of all the people living in their cars?  Why didn’t you take pictures of the workers who got burned up on the oil rigs, who got burned up welding tanks, who got electrocuted at a drill site, who died opening an oil tank, who got their hands cut off, their fingers cut off?  Western North Dakota has been a shit-hole hell for the past eight years.  And before that it was poor, cold, barren, and desolate.

Jessie, why don’t you go to the new apartments in Watford City or Dickinson, and talk to the wives who live there.  Ask them how they like paying $2,000 per month for a two bedroom apartment, being on a lease and being scared that their husband is going to lose his job.  How they like having to stay inside their two bedroom apartment October through April, because it is so cold outside and there is no where to go.

Let me point out, that describing a life living on a parent’s farm, not having to pay rent, not having to worry about being evicted, not having to go to a job every day, could make Texas, Tennessee, Idaho, anywhere, seem like a nice place to live.  In Western North Dakota, the vast majority of people are living in overpriced rental housing, are struggling financially, and are in danger of losing their job and their housing.  You should write about how things really are.